The Looking Hour at PIERMARQ
At first, you see a painting of blurry flora.
At last, you meet a 4 sq metre lesbian orgy.
The commercial gallery tucked in the backstreets of Surry Hills, Sydney offers a museum quality exhibition. Their presentation of just 15 paintings, leads visitors into a new buzzed and blurred reality:
The still lifes from Therese Mulgrew feel ‘normal’ at first but each present restrained distortions.
Johanna Bath features blurred lips and naked limbs with endless stories that you just can't help but to stare at.
Scout Zabinski offers a life-size full frontal self portrait in an oyster shell, a pose reminiscent of George Costanza.
Then I'm confronted by Gabrielle Dunayski’s Hymen Anxiety, 2024. Like Brett Whitely and Francis Bacon painted a lesbian orgy.
The thing is, it felt okay to look. It wasn't awkward. The way that the curators had blurred reality created a 'safe space'. There, it was okay to stare at naked. It was okay to think about sex and intimacy and fantasy and what ever the hell else came to mind. They shed the typically sterile and staunch feeling of high-end commercial galleries and offered something raw and radical yet refined and beautiful.
By the end, I was dizzy and amazed. Where the fuck was I? What was I looking at? What a gift.
